Why liberate sex? How is sex enslaved, unjust? Each time we have sex, God is present. Sex can be a way to know God. People often say itās ājust sex.ā Well, letās unpack what just sex is. Those of us within the Christian tradition do not often discuss just sex. This book does. Liberating sex brings us closer to God. Students seem to think Christianity simply says āno sex before marriage .ā Instead, I want to urge us toward a positive sexual theology. How can sex lead us to justice ?
I care about just sex because I believe we come to know God through knowing others. If our relationships with others are unhealthy, then we are not learning about the true God. Sex is one way people relate and sex is a place where God is present, even if, in the words of one of my students, āI donāt like to think about God when Iām doing that.ā Yes, it can be scary to figure out what our relationship with God looks like.
Iāll begin with the actual sexual practices of human beings. Predominant Christian theologies argue that sex should only occur between a man and a woman within the bounds of marriage . This argument excludes the majority of people having sex. Growing up, Christianity taught me not to discuss or have sex, the end. But if we donāt talk about what good sex looks like, then it is unsurprising we also have a hard time articulating what bad sex is. We need to uncover the theology underlying actual sexual practices. Then we need to make sex just. From within Christian theology, I ask how we can love God and love sex. The sexual landscape is constantly changing. If the boundaries of what defines āsexā were porous before, they barely exist now. Thus, this theology is of the bedroom, Skype, a massage parlor, any place we exist.
To have a just sexual relationship power must be shared, empowering the participants and the wider community. We are speaking of individual relationships and the very structures of society. We do so considering the humanity of each human being in the community.
Donna Freitas1 wrote a wonderful and depressing book called Sex and the Soul. It provides evidence for the desperate need for holistic sex education. As we know, students separate religion from sex, unless evangelical; then itās no sex or even kissing before marriage . The book details these facts.
Both Catholic and mainline Protestant ā¦ students laughed out loud when asked what their faith tradition might have to say about these matters. ā¦ They laughed because they see religious views about sexuality (at least what they know of them, which is typically not very much) as outdated and irrelevant. And they laughed because they were confused about the prospect of their faith having anything useful to say about these things. (Freitas, 196)
What Is Theology and How Can It Help?
This book ādoesā theology, exploring how we can have good sex within Christianity. Theology can be defined as āfaith seeking understanding.ā Here, faith seeks to understand how we know God through our sexuality and sex lives. āSeekingā here must include action, not simply thinking or talking. We can say what we like about sex but our actions show our true theology. In examining faith/theology, we often look to scripture and tradition along with our experience and āreason.ā Helpful questions and analyses emerge from many theologies, particularly liberationist theologies: queer, feminist, womanist, black, economic, political, ecological, and so on. Iāll explain a few of these here.
Latin American liberation theology emerged in the 1960s within Catholic communities of poor people. These poor Christians began to articulate that God was on the side of the poor. From these communities emerged a theology that expanded across the globe. Liberation theology prioritizes the marginalized, people usually excluded from the conversation, and it prioritizes action. Most importantly, liberationists subject everything to suspicion, rethinking and reflecting on faith and action. In this book, I prioritize people most excluded from the conversation.
Liberation theologies argue that Christianity should free people to be full human beings. Our sexual theology needs liberation. Liberationists argue that we should work toward Godās kingdom, the new heaven and new earth where justice will rule. Liberation theology asks who should we partner with, can we sell and buy sex, who can have children , and so forth, and combines aspects of race, economics, politics, gender , sexuality, religion, and so on.
Feminist theology resists the marginalization of women, calling for equality in practices and structures. Rather than assuming theology is neutral, feminist theology realizes that patriarchy , which places men at the top of the power spectrum, has influenced theology. Feminist theology aims to rethink Christianity, rescuing it from patriarchal assumptions. Ecofeminist liberation theology resists the marginalization of the environment as well, articulating that all of nature is sacred. The environment affects us all, whether poor or rich, black or white, male, female, and everything in between.2 Ecofeminist theology urges us to consider the inescapable fact that we are intertwined with our environment. Women are often the caretakers of children and are often the ones surviving in hostile and damaging environments. There are also womanist, Latina, and other theologies from women of color, excluded from the original feminist theologies, which tended to reflect the themes of white middle-class women.
Finally, sexual theology begins with the notion that we are sexual beings. This theology assumes sexuality is part of our lives. This is the newest strand of liberation theology and the emphasis of this book.
How Will I Tackle This Topic? (Method)
Traditionally, the areas influencing theology are divided into a quadrilateral: scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.3 Scripture is the sacred text of any religious tradition. In this book, we use the Christian Bible . Tradition is the history of oneās religion, theologians and ethicists, and religious doctrines or dogma (right rules). Reason is thinking rationally or academically; hence it includes academic subjects from psychology to economics. Experience is what we learn through our daily lives.
Liberation theology follows a slightly different method known as the hermeneutical (interpretive) circle. This circle blends action and reflection together in community. As a liberation theologian, I try to draw together threads of theology emerging from these communities. Its simplest form is āSee-Judge-Act.ā
The first step in the circle is a process of self-awareness, called conscientization. It is becoming aware of our situation and how that situation sits in history and culture: See. We do this work in community; it relates to the concept of experience mentioned earlier. Differently though, it is not the experience of one person but a community together. Recognizing our own situation is the first step to analyzing and improving it. Why and how are we sexually impoverished?
The next step is to analyze the situation with all the academic tools at our disposal: Judge. We can analyze using the academic tools of economics, politics, sociology, race studies, sex and gender studies, and so on. This step is similar to āreasonā described earlier.
The third step is to analyze the situation with all the theological tools at our disposal, while at the same time analyzing the theology itself: Judge. We can analyze our faiths, whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and so forth, to find the underlying theologies of sex and sexuality. This piece is similar to aspects of text and tradition.
Finally, we act. We can assess what practice we should encourage, support, or choose. Action is absent from the quadrilateral but it is critical to liberation theology.
Here, two pieces are emphasized. First, I am not looking for the right rules (dogma). I am looking for better practices that will be reflected upon and lead to even better practices. Second, I begin by doubting all that has come before. Who said what? Why did they say it? For whose benefit? Then I turn to the experiences of people in the community.
I acknowledge this circle or spiral is messy. I try to separate out the pieces throughout this book simply to provide areas for further reflection. Working through the hermeneutical circle, we can assess our sexual poverty4 and redress it.
What Other Academic Subjects Will I Include?
Liberation theologies encourage academic analysis of each situation. In particular, I consider global feminisms, intersectionality, and critical race theory. While feminism articulates how our society is patriarchal (male-dominated) and how society could shift toward equality for women, global feminism means thinking about women cannot be limited to white, US, middle-class women. An economically and socially just feminism recognizes that women are affected by injustice due to gender , economics, race, and so forth. With wealthier white men often making decisions, women are harmed and marginalized.
Often gender , race, and class are treated separately. However, such a separation is unhelpful as the overlaps nuance the discussion. Feminism needs to consider class, race, religion, and so forth because we do not exist in a vacuum. All is interconnected. We need to listen to the voices of a variety of women of color and poor women around the globe. People encounter both privilege and oppression , depending on their particular situations. ...